What Actually Qualifies You: Mike Hobbs On Failure, Forgiving Debt, And The Two-Bucket Daily Method

You’ve told yourself the story before. You didn’t go to the right school, you don’t have the right degree, your spouse doesn’t believe in what you’re building, or you’re carrying debt from a dozen programs that never worked, so maybe this isn’t for you either. Mike Hobbs opened his session by handing the room his actual qualifications, and none of them were the kind you’d put on a resume.

What actually qualifies you to succeed, if it isn’t your resume?

He was suspended from school every year through high school. He failed every class in ninth grade and eleventh grade, and to this day isn’t sure how he passed tenth. He graduated college having completed a fraction of his credits with a GPA under one point out of four. None of that is a joke he tells for laughs and moves past quickly. He sits in it, because it’s the exact evidence he uses to make his real point: he still qualified to earn money in this business, and so does every single person listening to him.

The years before Empower Network were rough in a way that’s easy to gloss over in a highlight reel. He read a popular book about real estate, went and got a home equity line of credit against his house, and swiped it on course after course and program after program that he never actually finished. He was convinced access to credit meant he was already rich enough to quit his job. He wasn’t. Eventually a card got declined at the grocery store with his family standing behind him, then another, then his debit card. His finances collapsed completely in 2010. He remembers the repo crew taking the television his mother had given him and the couches, then the eviction notice on a house he’d owned. He moved his pregnant wife and their daughter into a two bedroom apartment and started over with nothing.

He tells that story because it’s the whole argument. If someone with that background still qualifies to build something real here, the excuse doesn’t hold for anyone else in the room either.

What’s the two-bucket method that actually turns activity into results?

Mike’s daily method of operation runs on two buckets, and most people only ever build the first one. The first bucket is what he calls results later: capture pages, blog content, Instagram, solo ads, all the groundwork that doesn’t pay off the day you do it. It matters, but people camp there because it feels productive without ever requiring an actual conversation. His own results-later bucket is video, built through an enormous, almost boring volume of practice: hundreds of live one-hour webinars, over a hundred long-form hangouts, and hundreds more short value videos, recorded across years before any of it looked easy from the stage.

The second bucket is results now, and it’s the one most people avoid because it means actually talking to another human being. Facebook chat, Skype, direct conversation. Mike’s own team ran a focused push in the weeks before this event using nothing but that second bucket, personally sponsoring dozens of new people from Facebook conversations alone. He brought a teammate on stage, a man who’d flown in from Israel, sponsored people in his first hundred days using this exact method, despite starting with barely any email list at all. The lesson isn’t that one bucket is optional. It’s that most people only ever build one of the two, and then wonder why nothing converts.

• Results later: capture pages, blog posts, video content, the groundwork that compounds slowly.
• Results now: direct conversations on Facebook and Skype with actual people, today.
• Pick one activity in the first bucket and repeat it daily until it stops feeling foreign.
• Never let the first bucket become an excuse to avoid the second.

What does forgiving a debt someone owes you have to do with growing a business?

Mike’s first real breakthrough had nothing to do with marketing. He’d loaned money and credit to people he loved, his mother among them, wanting to help however he could. Then the debt itself started poisoning those relationships. His mother stopped calling because she owed him. Friends did the same. Someone eventually told him the fix wasn’t collecting. It was releasing it entirely.

Forgive the debt owed to you. Forgive it.

He called his mother, told her the debt was gone, called his friends and did the same. The weight he describes lifting off him wasn’t financial. It was relational, and he ties it directly to opening up room for anything new to come in, instead of staying tangled in old resentment.

Why do you have to say yes to the stage before you feel ready?

Mike describes himself plainly as an introvert who almost declines every time he’s asked to speak. He goes anyway, on the theory that he can’t know in advance whose one sentence might land for one person in the room. That’s the same logic behind his closing point, which has nothing to do with tactics. He was picked on relentlessly as a kid, for reasons as small and humiliating as the clothes he had to wear to school. He still built something real. Worthiness, in his framing, was never something you earn after the results show up. It’s the starting condition, not the finish line.

The full session walks through his complete daily method of operation and the exact video breakdown behind it. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

And everyone, stay on your feet as we welcome to the stage, Mike Hobbs, too. Awesome. Thank you, guys. Freedom!

Love it. I mean, I wish I could come out here like Paul and do that, but I don't know. I'm not ready for that yet. But that's what's cool about being in a partnership, you know, with people that, you know, truly bring the best out of you.

You know, he brings the energy, and I usually bring the calmness. But, you know, we make a good team, and our alliance is growing, and I'm just happy to be here in front of all of you. So it was interesting. I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about, and I thought of, okay, there's three big breakthroughs that have happened in my life.

And who would want to learn maybe some breakthroughs that I've had in my life, maybe that you can apply in yours? Would you guys like to learn that? Cool. So last night, I was thinking, and I had this crazy idea, and I was like, okay, it's 1.30 in the morning, and I was like, you know what?

I think I want to put some slides together. So I'm up at 1.30 in the a.m. I kind of had an idea of what I was going to talk about, but I had this crazy idea of putting some slides together, and I'm not the greatest technology slide type of person. I know technology, but I'm not too into creating slides, and at literally about 4.30 a.m., I was done with my slides.

So hopefully, you guys, and there's only like 13 of them, so it took me, what, three and a half hours or so to do this. But one thing, and this tells you, I didn't have a Paul Hutchings last night telling me headlines, because usually I just tell him to do all my headlines. So here's my headline. Here's my headline.

Here's my headline of today's topic, if we could pull up the slides real quick. And you can, so here we go. Ready? Three awesome, super cool ninja breakthroughs that have allowed me to get rich quick overnight on the Internet.

Is that good? See, Paul wasn't there to help me with the headlines, so I always leave him to do the copy. But guys, obviously. I didn't get rich overnight over the Internet, and you'll kind of see that here in a minute.

But why should you even listen to what I have to say today? I want to give you some qualifications. I know, you know, Tracy Walker, she has a master's degree, right? There's some other people that may have like their doctorates and, you know, all these different things.

But let me tell you my qualifications real quick, okay? Number one, I was suspended from school every single year up until high school. That's pretty good, right? So, okay, we're off on a good start.

Okay, I failed every class in ninth grade and eleventh grade. I don't know how I passed tenth grade. I don't know what happened that year, but ninth and eleventh, I failed every single class, okay? Every single class.

I ditched a lot, and I didn't go, right? So, that was that. I took five English… classes in a row for summer school.

In fact, I was back there giving them the slides, and she was plugging it in. She's like, oh, you said get Rick quick, and I'm like, oh, whoops. And then she's like, oh, wait, you didn't capitalize the L on this one. So, she was like going through, correcting my slides, and I'm like, dang it.

I didn't have my wife with me last night either, you know. She got an English major, so it's kind of interesting. So, anyway, I took… This is crazy.

I was in summer school five in a row. Could you imagine, like, you go to English, English, English, English. Man, it's amazing I can even speak right now, right? I mean, geez.

So, that's another qualification I have for you guys. All right. I graduated college with 15 out of 75 credits. And I looked up my GPA, and it was .96.

Is that good? .96, yes. And the funny thing about the college, oh, man. The funny thing about the college is I literally got…

I was in the military, if you guys didn't know. And they pay for your college, right? But they didn't put in the disclaimer, if I don't pass, they don't pay. So, guess what?

I paid for all my college. Actually, I had a reimbursement. It's the military, which is really fun. And they take it out of your check.

They take your money. They get it some way. So, then I racked up 100K in debt, buying tons of training and program after program that didn't work. Anyone else do that?

Like, literally, I would blame the programs, but here's what I would do. I read a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Anyone read that book? And it got me into the wonderful world of real estate, right?

And they said, get credit. So, I went and got my mortgage, and I got a home equity line of credit. You guys know what that is? Where you got literally a credit card on your house.

I had like $60,000 credit card, you know? And then, so everything that came out, I'd be like, swipe. Oh, $2,000 course? Yes.

Oh, $5,000 program? Yes. Oh, coaching? Cool.

Yes. And I would never go through the coaching. I would never go through the training. I just literally thought I was rich.

I was like, yeah, I got $60,000. Let me quit my job. So, we quit my job. We were living off credit cards.

I was just swiping left and right. And then, all of a sudden, one day, I get into the grocery store, and I was like, I got all this food here, and I swiped my credit card and declined. Right? I pull out another card.

I'm like, oh, sorry, sorry. Let me just get another card out. Declined. Oh, crap.

We need to eat tonight, right? Then, I pull out another credit card. Actually, this is my debit card. Declined.

I literally had less than $60 to my name at that moment because I used credit for everything. I got $100,000 in debt, and I had nothing to show for it. I just had a bunch of programs. I had a bunch of training that I'd never gone through, and I had nothing to show for it.

So, what ended up happening? We were backed in a corner. My wife was pregnant. Actually, we had our first baby together.

I have an older daughter, too. But we filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Literally, I lost everything. I remember the repo people coming into my house.

And taking the TV that I got from my mom. Where was it? Boulevard, home furnishings or whatever, right? Got it on credit.

Took our TV, took our couches. And then, got the eviction notice. Had to get out of my house that I owned. Foreclosed on.

And we had to leave. We went into a two-bedroom apartment and lost everything. Started over. Had no credit at that point.

Had no credit cards. Had no money. And I was like, what the heck? What the heck are we doing?

Right? And the cool thing is, all those qualifications there, somehow, I still qualified to earn money in Empower Network. How cool is that? And you know what?

You're qualified, too. Every one of you is qualified to make money here. It doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter if you, you know, have an unsupported spouse.

My first spouse was unsupportive. You know? It doesn't matter if you had bad grades. It doesn't matter if you have a master's degree.

Every one of you is qualified. And I want you to know that. Every one of you is qualified to make money here. And you can do this.

So, just a few things, you know, about why I'm actually doing this business. These are actually pictures from two, from the last two days. Okay? And my wife always likes to, whenever I leave, you know, for events, she always likes to rub things in.

You know, like, oh, look, we just went to a Piano Guys concert. You know? And then there's our newborn baby, who is about six weeks old. Right there, Troy.

We got Luke and Zoe there, trying on their costumes. And they're all hand-me-downs, because we have five kids. So, they just, each one, every year, they just use the last person, right? But, yeah, literally, like, Mario and little Luigi Spiderman, right there.

And then that's them at the Piano Guys concert. And obviously, my newborn baby. These are the last two days. She just texts me pictures, and like, man, why can't you be here, you know?

And, you know, we, she usually comes to the events. So, you know, I'm definitely missing them. And why else do I do this? Why else do I do this?

Why else do I do this business? Well, our team. You know? Look at that awesome fish I caught.

We went on a fishing trip two days ago, or three days ago. You know? And as a team, you know, we got together as a team. We built culture.

And then the rest of everyone else was in there, laying down, all throwing up. You can see Paul Hutchings in the back. And I was there, out there, having fun, catching bait. You know?

While everyone was sick. We actually called that our initiation into our alliance. You need to go on a boat trip and puke over the side. That's your initiation.

So that's what we do as a team, guys. Right? But you know what? More importantly, and then obviously all of you, and then after that, though, we made up for it.

You know, we went over to Rob's house. Rob and Kimberly Skinner. Give them a shout out. They cooked us the fish that we didn't catch.

We had to go buy the fish. And we cooked some fish. And we were together, about 40, 50 of us in this little house. It's not little.

It's a big house. But it looked little when we were all in there. But we had fun. And we were together.

You know? And then here's what's more important. We didn't just do fun things. I remember I was driving on the way here with Paul Hutchings.

And we were in the car. And I remember there's a Facebook notification in our Facebook chat. And it was Jean. Jean.

Where are you at? Jean? Yeah. Jean.

She posts in the chat, I made my first sale. And I remember Jean two events ago coming up to me going, I don't have a team. I don't know where I'm at. And I said, who's your sponsor?

And it was someone that I sponsored. And he just never plugged her in. And I remember going, you're on my team. And she was like, really?

She was like frustrated. She was kind of, you know, down. And she realized she was part of a team. By the end of that event, and just so you all know, you're all part of a team here.

But at the end of that event, she was happy. She was enthusiastic. She kind of reminds me of my dad, very untechnical sometimes, right? And like we were driving, and she's like, what's tagging?

You know? She's like a Jewel she is. So she's always like in Facebook. But just the excitement I seen on her face and to know that she stuck through it, no matter what, and we see those, I got my first sale.

That's why I do this business. That's why I do this business. And obviously all of my Empower Network family, which is you. That's another reason I'm doing this business.

That's why I'm here on the stage. As you know, every time they ask me to speak, to speak, I always say, I always have this in the back of my mind, you know, I'm an introvert, I don't really want to speak, you know, I'm just kind of like, I'll just go to the event and consume the information, and I almost say no every single time. I almost say no every single time, but then I, then I learned that maybe my story will inspire one person. It doesn't, I don't know who it'll inspire.

I don't know if it's going to inspire you. Maybe one thing I say will get you to take action now and get you to the business that you want to build. Maybe, but I will never know that if I say no. So I get out of my comfort zone.

I'm an introverted person by trade, you know, that's just who I am, and I'm still up here, and I do this for my Empower Network family. So that's you guys. Cool. So let me give you, the three breakthroughs.

Breakthrough number one, and I was actually talking with Paul last night too, and it's so wonderful having awesome friends, you know, that we built through this community, and I was talking with them, and I thought about a breakthrough that really helped me make more money, and this really did. I don't remember who told me to do this, but they said, does anyone owe you any money? Does anyone owe you guys money? Okay.

Forgive the debt owed to you. Forgive it. And here's what happened to me. I remember I had some best friends borrow money from me that never paid it back.

I had my mom was struggling one time, and I took my credit card, my home equity credit card, and I swiped this card, and I bought her a regular to live in, right? So she owed me like $8,000 or whatever, and I had like all these people who owed me money, because I wanted to help. I wanted to help them, you know, and I just like, yeah, I'll loan you my credit. I didn't actually have money.

I'll loan you my credit, and I had all this debt owed to me, and then what happened was it ruined all of my relationships. Because my mom never wanted to talk to me, because she owed me money. My friends never wanted to talk to me, because she owed me money. And then one day, I just said, you know what?

In order for me to think abundantly, in order for me to really break through and get past this, someone told me to just forgive it. Forgive it. And I forgave everyone's debt. I called them up, and I said, you know what, mom?

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We're done. No more debt.

You don't owe me anything. I called my friends. Don't worry about it. And you want to know the burden that lifted off of me?

That burden was gone completely. So I want you to forgive one person of their debt right now. Maybe text them. Just do it.

I promise you, it'll lift, the burden off. And you'll allow, and you'll open up prosperity to come to you. You will open it up to you. Don't let those things that hold you back, like David Wood said, don't let those things you're holding on to hold you back.

You can give. You can forgive. So do it. I mean, who's going to actually do this?

I'm just curious. Awesome. Awesome. You guys are awesome.

So I got break. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. Breakthrough number two, DMO. You guys have heard me talk about this before, right? Daily method of operation.

You've got to have a DMO. And I'm not going to go through my whole daily marketing method because I only got 12 minutes. But here's the thing. We, Paul and I, were masterminding and we came up with two marketing buckets.

So I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits.

And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits.

And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits.

And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that is even results or even benefits. And I want you to imagine one bucket here, and that Instagram, solo ads. This is results later type of activities, guys. When you first do your first capture page, are you going to get an instant result?

You're not. But so many people focus all of their time here. Yes, you need to be doing these. Yes, you need to be taking these actions and building this stuff so that you have even better results later.

That's one bucket that you should focus on every single day. And only pick one of those things. Like I chose videos. So I do things like Periscope.

I do things like YouTube, right? I do things like Facebook video. I chose video as my bucket later. And obviously the capture pages and things like that.

So that's one thing that I do every single day. And I focus on it. So if you can remember to do that. So let me just show you.

Do you think I became an overnight success? When I did this? Do you think I could just come up here and speak? Naturally?

Guys, this is how I can speak naturally. This is one account, 749 live, one-hour webinars. All right? That account is all one-hour webinars.

Seven hundred and forty-nine of them. This one, another account with one-hour plus hangouts. Okay? One hundred and forty-four of those.

Another account, 257 of just value videos that are anywhere from three to fifteen minutes. And I can't post those other three YouTube accounts that got shut down. But guys, that is over a thousand live, a thousand videos. How can I get up here and talk?

How can I do videos? How can I make videos on demand? Because I practice. Do you think I just became a seven-figure type earner by just doing one video?

No. I practice. And I do this. And I do it daily.

And the days I don't do it, I don't get results. So, results now bucket. This is things like Facebook chat, Skype, connecting with actual humans. Guys, I don't get results.

Our team, we do a blitz. We did a blitz this last 17 days before this event. Eighty-two people personally sponsored, not personally. Eighty-two people sponsored in 72 days in our team from Facebook alone.

People getting their first sale ever. Their second day in the business. Results now bucket. You got to focus.

I want to bring up one person for maybe three, four minutes. To kind of just share with you real quick the results now bucket. So, I want to bring up Vitaly Dubinin. Give him a hand.

Guys, this guy implemented this method, results now. He sponsored 100 people in 100 days. And there's a mic over there. There's a mic.

100 people in 100 days. His first 100 days. Guess how big his email list is. How big is your email list?

1,700. Guys, he doesn't have a big email list. 100 people in 100 days. $32,000 in that 100 days.

And how did you do it? Just real quick, couple minutes. How did you do it? Well, wow.

First of all, I flew from Israel. And it's my first Empower Network event. Yeah. Isn't Mike amazing?

Give it up for Mike. He's awesome. Guys, I feel so honored and so blessed and so humbled and so inspired to be right now on this stage and sharing with you because, you know, I joined Empower Network four months ago when I saw Mike. I'm like, who's this guy who's getting all of those results?

I mean, I Skyped him. We Skyped for like 40 minutes, which is not typical for Mike. And then I discovered soon that I get Paul Hutchings as a bonus on our team. Like, wow, it's not just Mike.

It's Paul Hutchings here. So I fell in love with the vision, guys. You know, I saw David Wood creating 100 millionaires a year. Right?

And the vision on our team to free 100 families per year. And we stand for freedom. Right? Wow.

And it's just one of those moments that you know. That everything is aligned for you. Like what you're going to learn in the Top Producer Formula Module 2. Right?

Is the right company that you believe in. And the right products that you believe in. And the right team that you believe in. And most importantly, that you believe in yourself.

Right? That's the most important part. So everything aligned for me. And I.

I went all in six days after I joined. Right? And I sponsored my first person the next day. And then what happened is I hit gold.

$10,000 in income my second month. And I sponsored 106 people now in my first four months in the company. And it's been amazing. Right?

Amazing journey. I. I'm the product of the product. You know.

I watched actually all of the products. All of them. In Empower Network. Three times.

At least. Three times. I carry it in my pocket all the time. When I have time to listen.

I always like to listen to David. And I model after what he's doing. You know. It's not because I'm special.

You know. I. I. I started off as a dead broke student.

University student. You know. With no internet marketing experience. Nothing.

You know. And English is not even my first language. Believe it or not. Seven years ago I was not speaking English at all.

I taught myself to speak because I've done like 440 videos. You know what I mean? . And that's just the last year.

Yeah. Yeah. So I want to share with you two things right now. That's going to I believe make the most difference.

Number one. Who want to get results now? So. Right now.

There are so many people. That are hurting. That are struggling. That want change.

That are not satisfied with what they're doing. They want to quit their job. They want to travel more with their families. They want to take more vacations.

They want to be with their kids. And give them the love. And they want to live a life of freedom. Right now there are people.

That you can go and reach out. And help. You don't need to like. Some people go.

I'm just going to spend my next two months. And learn how to make my blog look pretty. You know. I'm just going to learn copywriting.

I'm going to learn all of this. Capture pages. Funnels. And all of this complicated stuff.

And they are not getting results. What if you today. Reached out to somebody. And helped him.

You know what I mean. That's. That's what you can do. Every single one.

Of the people that I sponsored. I taught them. Every single word. I talked to personally.

Before they sign up. And they sign up on the spot. When I talk to them. You can do this.

And the second thing. That I want to share with you guys. And this is probably. The most important thing.

That you can learn. That will. Create a breakthrough for you. Is that.

The most important question. You can ask yourself. Is who do I need to become. Right now.

And how can I start. Living into that truth. With my daily practices. Right now.

Because you don't have to have. Achieved. A result of what you think you need to achieve. To be the type of person that you need to be.

Right now. And to speak your truth. Awesome. You can be a leader.

Right now. You can step into the leadership role. You can be that person. Without having the results.

Don't wait until the results happen. You generate it from the inside. You generate the energy from the inside. Don't wait until you know.

Some external things will happen. Like you're going to. Make $10,000 a month. And you'll start feeling like oh.

I'm the $10,000 per month person. I know how to make. Build a six-figure business. I know how to build a high-end home.

You're gonna have to make that money. And start giving. Your subscribers. Your followers.

Your friends your friends. You can start making those money. And start giving to the truth right now, Connecting to your vision. And start sharing your vision.

And what you believe in. And what you stand out. Stand for. And stand against.

And start sharing it with other people. Right now. Awesome. Cool.

All right, I got one more break here. But thanks. Everyone give Vitali a hand. All right.

So guys, I don't have a lot of time left, but guys, this guy talks to people on Facebook, brings them to Skype, and uses exactly what David Wood tells him to do in the Top Producer formula. Isn't that awesome? He's a perfect example of a product of the product, and that's why I wanted to bring him up here. So last breakthrough, guys, last breakthrough.

I am worthy, and so are you, and here's why. When I was a kid, I told you I got suspended from school and things like that. You know why? Because I got picked on.

I remember my parents left my laundry on the floor one day, you know, after they washed it, and my cat peed on all of our clothes, right? And I went and I put on that. And I had no other clothes, and I had to go to school. And we didn't have a washer and dryer because she goes and, you know, to somewhere else.

I wore cat piss clothes to school. It was dry, but it didn't smell very good. But guys, when I got to school, guess what happened? Everybody made fun of me.

I was picked on for the rest of school. For the rest of time, almost, like that I was in that school. They picked on me. I got in fights after fight after fight after fight.

I always stood up for myself. I never backed down. But you know what? I am still worthy of making success.

And you know what? You are worthy for success. I want you to stand up and give the person next to you and tell them you are worthy. Tell them that you are worthy.

Every one of you are worthy. And I love you guys. Thank you. Give it up for Mike Hobbs, everybody.

Give it up for Mike Hobbs.